Tradition meets ambition

With its roots reaching back to 1939, Dugard is a traditional family-run business with a longstanding pedigree and reputation that only evolves after many years in the industry. Dave Tudor popped along to a recent open house held at Dugard’s head office in Hove and spoke to managing director Eric Dugard and UK sales manager Owen Gibbons about the company’s future plans and aspirations.

The past two years haven’t been easy for Dugard. In August this year, company chairman Bob Dugard sadly passed away after a lengthy illness that understandably made it difficult for him to play an active role in the day to day running of the business. At about the same time Bob became ill, Eric decided to strengthen the team and appointed Owen Gibbons as UK sales manager.

“With Owen’s appointment we’re investing in the future,” Eric Dugard affirms. “His experience, initially with Swiss Precision Tooling and then the Engineering Technology Group and DMG Mori will be invaluable in driving the business forward.

”On the sales side, we’re building a new team here – we’ve recently recruited two new experienced area sales managers – Mark Donnelly who looks after the North West and Ireland and Mark Hone in the Midlands. We’re currently looking for sales engineers to cover Scotland and the South West so we’d be delighted to hear from people who’d like to join the team.”

“Initially, I joined the company as an area sales manager, but I had some pretty clear ideas how we could grow and evolve the business,” Owen Gibbons explains. “I was then promoted to UK sales manager about a year ago and now have total responsibility for sales, applications and marketing.

“This is a great company with a lot of potential and I’m keen to drive it forward and take things to the next level. It won’t happen overnight, but everything we do within the business, across the entire organisation, will be totally centred around the customer and providing the best products, the best service and the best support.”

Comprehensive portfolio

Over the years, Dugard has established a number of exclusive distribution agreements with leading machine tool manufacturers worldwide so whatever the application and budget, the company, in most cases, can provide a cost-effective solution.

The product selector on the company’s website (http://www.dugard.com/machines/filter/) makes choosing the right machine a relatively straightforward process. At any one time, around 30-40 machines are in stock at the Hove showroom with 60-70 on forward order. Years of experience means forecasting has been honed to a fine art at Dugard.

Globally, Dugard is well-represented: the Hove head office serves the UK market with similar offices in Russia, Poland and the UAE and an extensive distribution network takes care of business across Europe. Cloud-based order schedules are accessible to all outlets ensuring stock is available to serve respective markets. At around 20% of the overall turnover, this aspect of Dugard’s business is pretty significant. The Polish company is actually a business in its own right but is 100% owned by Dugard.

Partnerships based on trust

Never a company to pursue bright, shiny short-term distribution agreements, Dugard has established long-term partnerships – upwards of 25 years in some cases – with its principals and works closely with them: “We’re being approached by companies all the time but 99 times out of a hundred we decline,” Mr Dugard reveals. “If anything, we’ve been rationalising our product range in recent years; too many products can mean excessive crossover and most importantly, confusion for our customers and sales staff.”

“Also, if we’re working on a particularly challenging application with a customer, it’s certainly not unusual to for us to involve product specialists from the principal concerned – along with our own sales and applications engineers so we need that level of trust,” Mr Gibbons adds.

“Historically, Dugard was probably known as an out and out volume seller. Today, reflecting the changing needs of the marketplace, we’re evolving into a more applications-led organisation. Some customers are happy to simply buy machines from us – the Dugard brand is established and well-respected; others are taking their first steps into automation for example and need applications expertise.”

Sliding scales

On the subject of distribution agreements – every now and then, something different does come along. Dugard’s latest news – arguably taking centre stage at the October open house – is a partnership with South Korean-based Hanwha Corporation for the supply of sliding head lathes and collaborative robots (cobots). Indeed a Hanwha XD38II with Fanuc 32i CNC was unveiled at the event.

“Hanwha were known to us through our Polish company who are the exclusive dealer of Hanwha sliding head machines in Poland and very experienced and familiar with their operation,” Mr Dugard affirms. “Owen and I went out to Simtos – Korea’s largest production and manufacturing technology exhibition – earlier this year predominantly to meet up with SMEC, but we also met with our Polish colleagues who recommended that we talk to Hanwha who were also exhibiting.”

It’s no great secret that the sliding head market is largely dominated by two companies in the UK, but despite some initial trepidation, Mr Dugard sees real potential for the Hanwha machines: “We’ve stocked a sliding head machine – the Dugard 32 – for many years now, and we’ve sold about 150 units, but it’s a simple ‘one size’ machine with no guide bush. Its success has been down to price – it’s half the cost of the main sliding head brands and for certain types of work, it’s highly cost-effective.

“It transpired that Hanwha were looking for a UK agent so we’ve entered into a sole distribution agreement,” he advises. “Hanwha’s strength in the sliding head market is the flexibility of the range which starts at 7mm diameter bar capacity all the way up to 42mm. Each model also has variants – they can be specified with or without a guide bush or with a removable guide bush, and from a control perspective the machines, depending on the model in question, are available with Fanuc or Siemens CNC. Hanwha also has a stocking facility in Frankfurt, Germany so supply won’t be a problem.”

The sliding head market is unquestionably ultra-competitive but Mr Dugard hopes to sell between 30-35 units a year: “I think it will be possible to make inroads,” he reveals. “We’re not naïve; we know it’s going to be difficult, but we believe there’s a market for customers needing a high quality sliding head solution who don’t want to pay premium prices. Our applications engineers have already been to the Hanwha factory for training and we’re looking forward to introducing the range to the marketplace. With the Dugard 32 we already have customers using sliding head technology so there’s definite potential there.”

Collaboratively speaking

The Hanwha agreement also extends to collaborative robots. Undoubtedly this is new ground for Dugard but the potential is currently being investigated. There are three models in Hanwha’s range – the compact, small footprint HCR-3; the 915mm reach HCR-5; and the heavier duty HCR-12 which is suitable for loading/unloading and palletising operations.

“We attended the Robotics & Automation show at Milton Keynes a couple of weeks ago and there’s no doubt the market potential is huge,” Mr Gibbons concludes. “When most people think of robots they think of them loading and unloading components onto a machine, but with collaborative robots, the scope is much wider. The idea is that they work alongside people.

“We’re still investigating options at the moment,” he says. “It’s quite conceivable that we’ll work with a systems integrator and simply supply and service the robot itself.”